Review Summary: Albeit it's not 3DG's most original album to date, Life Starts Now is the band's first step in the right direction.
Don't get me wrong now, I'm not saying the band is going to come up with any progressive riffs anytime soon, nor that they'll be changing their basic verse-chorus-verse structure either, but they've started adding things to the mix which might seem interesting to some people. Mainstream rock has the tendency to be catchy, relatively simple to play, and has lyrics that most people can relate to. Three Days Grace didn't change a bit in that aspect, but it's still offering more than in previous albums and it retains the catchy riffing that will keep your foot tapping along. The guitar solos are a nice touch too, even though it's not the first time the guitarist plays them ("It's All Over", off One-X, featured an interesting solo).
I have to admit that I couldn't digest the whole album at once when I first got it. I thought it was terribly repetitive, had boring lyrics, and sounded like the other 3DG albums. One song caught my attention, however. "Goin' Down" starts with an eerie-sounding guitar and a basic bass tapping along to generic drums. Unfortunately, the chorus is a huge let down to what could have been a great song. The effects-ridden guitar turns into standard 3DG riffing with Adam singing a very anti-climatic "You're going down! You're going down, down. You walk all over me, you never thought I'd be the one who's laughing now, now that you're going down." This is how the majority of the songs end up: Decent verses with terrible choruses and a solo that attempts to make up for it. Does it work?
Not always.
At the same time, not all choruses are terrible. "Break" features a really catchy chorus. Makes you wonder if it's thanks to the guitar though. "The Good Life" has an anthem-like chorus that'll have fangirls singing for weeks. "No More" has Adam screaming at the top of his lungs and it's one of the few choruses that are not anti-climatic in nature. Worth mentioning is the fact that it doesn't sound like the rest of the songs on the album at all. It doesn't employ the 4-chord riffing that the other songs have and has a pretty decent solo interlude that doesn't break expectations but simply does its job to keep the mood of the song going.
Lyric-wise, most of the songs on the album deal with heartbreak. So far, I have yet to be impressed by any of the lyrics. The delivery is also average, at best, which is a shame because Adam has the ability to melt hearts with that voice of his (Live "Wicked Game" cover? Anyone?). Granted, Three Days Grace aren't exactly known for their ballads. Nevertheless, there's one song in the album that you will either love or hate. "Last To Know" starts off with a piano melody that instills less sadness than your average boohoo-my-heart-just-got-broken acoustic song and has Adam singing in it with an acoustic guitar kicking in shortly thereafter. It doesn't necessarily make it a terrible song, but you'd expect the vocalist to sound sincere in it. None of that here, the song ends up being quite boring and the introduction of an electric guitar and drums at the end does very little to change that.
Three Days Grace is not a bad band at the core. The problem lies in the fact that despite having the right tools, they fail to deliver an album that exploits their potential. The vocalist is, by mainstream rock standards, good at what he does. Life Starts Now introduces us to more soloing ("Bitter Taste", "Break", "No More", etc) and a different, darker side of 3DG ("Goin' Down") while still retaining the catchy riffing from previous albums. The repetition of the latter is what essentially kills this album, however, along with the generic lyrics and anti-climatic choruses. Three Days Grace takes the first (baby) step towards experimenting more with Life Stars Now and can come up with something fresh on their next album if they get out of their comfort zone. Will they do it? Perhaps, but we all know how much record labels love having their bands experiment. In the end, it's up to the band to change their sound a bit and make something original next time.
Recommended Tracks:
No More
Break
Goin' Down
